Joe Mitchell's suggestion for having students identify their major prior to registration was discussed in detail. In particular,

a) When students enter Solar to register for classes, they would be required to respond to a dialogue box that asks if they have a major, and if so, to identify the major(s). They would also be asked if they were considering changing majors.

b) students without declared majors and those considering change would be asked to identify which program(s) they were thinking about.

There was significant discussion about whether selections should be fill-in boxes or selection from a menu, etc. It was also noted that students tend to be pressed for time when actually registering, so it would be better to allow students to do this when filling their shopping cart prior to their actual registration appointment.

A major issue was raised by Michael about how this could actually be implemented as part of PeopleSoft, since it would probably have to be done as some sort of a hold or block. There is additional work being done related to TAP and change of major. The consensus of the council was that we were in favor of adding this survey as part of the registration process, and it should be included (and investigated more deeply) as a part of the upcoming changes. This could perhaps happen for Spring 2015 or the following semester.

As a side note, it was commented that the registration window for students is being expanded from 2 weeks to 3 weeks, although beginning in the 9th or 10th week of the semester, as is done currently.

The council then turned to the issue of honor societies, in particular the NSCS proposal.

Some discussion ensued about whether a $95 fee was “nominal”.

The council felt that it would not be appropriate to recognize NSCS membership on the transcript. While NSCS has GPA as an admission requirement and mentions that members have opportunities for scholastic and service contributions, neither appears to be central part NSCS membership. Consequently, there seems to be little academic value added to the transcript by noting membership in NSCS.

As the meeting finished, discussion began reopening the question of whether any honorary society membership should be noted on the transcript. Since we were out of time, we agreed to revisit this issue in the future.